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Whenever I sit before the television set or unknowingly see it while partaking of a meal, I always see a walauwa or a palacious ancestral dwelling on the little screen. It so happens that it had become stereo typed and perhaps the most hacked location for most tele play producers.

I was quite interested in knowing why this walauwa and dwellers in it are used for this purpose. So I went in search of several Sinhala tele play creators of two kinds, the writers and directors. One well-known tele writer told me 'It is easy to handle the story line if you select a walauwa, for there can be various types of beginnings middles and ends'.

'Please tell me more about that' I asked.

Then he smilingly said. 'Take any walauwa, you can first of all place the background in any historic period you desire. Then you can identify the main characters. For instance, the walau hamu or the big man in the walauwa and his wife walauwe hamine, the lady.

Then it is a matter of showing their children in action. You are at liberty to create a daughter and a son. But see that they disagree with their parents, for at least for the sake of a gripping conflict that should be included in the creative interaction.

'But surely you can't just make them disagree with the parents?' I asked.

'Oh, that's a good question. The problem becomes easy, if you make the boy in the walauwa fall in love with a daughter of a slave like man working in the great big plantation of the walauwa.

'So this is once again the rich versus poor scene?'.

'What else? That's the best formula in almost all creative works'.

'But the issue lies in the actual depiction?'.

'That's well said. You can afford to be realistic humanistic and sentimental'.

'What do you prefer?'.

'I prefer the humanistic and sentimental side of life, for I can make my viewers cry, at the same time I can afford to get a sponsor and perhaps with a bit of luck, I should be in a position to raise money to make another series'.

'And that's also going to be a walauwa series'.

'What else? Walauwa has much more hidden material than one imagines'.

'Meaning?'

'In my investigations I have found quite a number of mysteries, fantasies, murders, rape, tortures and many more aspects that one can imagine in this world of humans.'

Then my friend the writer posed for a moment recalling some events in walauwa and in a low tone said. 'The most interesting and the most secretive area lies in the mysterious life of the walauwe mahattaya or walauwe hamuduruwo.'

'Why?' I asked.

'He has in most times lived a life of a culprit. Though he dislikes his sons and daughters falling in love with walauwe servants, he finds the chance to make advances to some of the pretty married women, around the premises or within the residence. This aspect too is significant. It should be customarily pointed out that there is a conflict between adultery and morality. These two sides are quite important and the story line or narrative structure as they say depends on the power of that aspect'.

'Quite interesting. So what's more?'

'Oh there is a lot more, you must never miss the outsiders or those who live outside the walauwa, for there are gossip mongers, plunderers, hired killers, boutique keepers. Oh I forgot to tell you, there should also be a village school and a village temple, and the fascinating happenings pertaining to those should be presented in the best manner possible for that will have a special appeal for the foreign market as well.'

'But' I said, 'All walauwas are not ancestral houses or mahagedaras, and all mahagedaras are not walauwas'.

'Yes' he nodded.

'I agree with you. But some of the important aspects of walauwa remain to be rediscovered'.

The truism is that several local walauwas have actually produced worthwhile revolutionaries, who have rendered a yeoman service to the community they lived.

On the other hand several walauwas have produced good-for-noting vagabonds. These characters should be put into the correct historical perspectives, a fact or that most tele writers and directors have failed to realise.

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